And yet it is more absurd, if it be possible, to extend our hopes and desires, our projects and designs for this world, beyond the term of our living here; for how unreasonable is it for us to trouble ourselves about this world longer than we are like to continue in it! and yet if this were observed, it would ease us of a great deal of labor and care, and deliver the world from those great troubles and disorders, which the designs and projects for future age

create.

Men might see some end of their labors, and of their cares, of encreasing riches, and adding house to house, and field to field, did they stint their desires with their lives; did they consider how long they were to live, and what is a sufficient and necessary provision for their continuance here: whereas now the generality of mankind drudge on to the last moment they have to live, and still heap up riches till they know no end of them, as if their lives and their enjovment of them, were to have no end neither.

The only tolerable excuse that can be made for this, is the care of posterity, to leave a liberal provision for children, that they may live happily after us : but this indeed is rather an excuse than a reason, for thus we see it is, when there is no such reason for it; when men have no children to provide for, nor it may be any relations, for whom they are much concerned; or when they have a sufficient provision for all their children, to encourage their industry and

virtue, though not to maintain them in idleness and vice, which no wise and good father would desire ; nay, it may be, when they have no other heir to an overgrown estate, but either a daughter, whose fortune may make her a rich prey, as is too often seen ; or a prodigal son, who is ruined already by the expectation of so great a fortune, and will quickly be even with his fortune, and ruin that when he has it.

A competent provision for children, is a just reason to continue our industry, though we have enough for ourselves, as long as we live, but to make them rich and great, is not. The piety and charity of parents, which entails a blessing upon their posterity, and an industrious and virtuous education of children, is a better inheritance for them than a great estate. But men, who are so intent to the very last upon encreasing their estates, seldom do it for any other reason, but to satisfy their own insatiable thirst, which is to hoard up riches for a time when they cannot enjoy them, to provide for their living in this world a much longer time, than they know they can possibly live in it. This is much greater folly than the man in the parable was guilty of, whose ground brought forth plentifully, and he pulled down his barns, and built greater, and said to his soul, soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take

thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. He was so wise as to know when he had enough, and when it was

fit to retire and take his ease: yet God said unto him, Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee; and then whose shall all these things be, which thou hast provided? Luke. xii. 10, &c.

Thus how big are most men with projects and designs, which there is little hope should ever take effect, while they live? especially aspiring monarchs, and busy politicians, who draw the scheme, and frame their design of an universal empire, through a long series of events, or meditate changes and alterations of government, of the laws and religion of a nation, by insensible steps and methods; which, though it were never so hopeful a project, they cannot hope to live to see effected, and therefore exceed their own bounds, and trouble the world at present, with what no body now living may ever be concerned in; they undertake to govern the world, when they are dead and gone, whereas every age brings forth new projects and counsels, as it does a new generation of men, and new scenes of affairs, and a new set of politicians: would men but confine their cares and projects within the bounds of their own lives, and mind only what concerns themselves, and their own times, and they would live more at ease, and the world enjoy more peace and quiet, than now it is ever likely to do and yet one would think this very reasonable, not to concern ourselves about the world any longer than we are like to live in it; to do no injury to posterity as near as we can,

and to do what good we can for them, without disturbing the present peace and good government of the world, but to leave the care of the next age to those who shall succeed, and to that good providence which governs and takes care of all ages and generations of men.

2. Since we know the common period of human life, we should frequently count our days, and observe how our lives waste, and draw near to eternity. Our time slides away insensibly, and few men take notice how it goes; they find their strength and vigor continues without any decay; and they reckon upon living three score and ten, or four score years, but seldom consider that it may be thirty or forty years are already gone, that is, the best half of their lives; they put a cheat upon themselves by computing the whole duration of their lives, without considering how much of this is already past, and how little of it is come; which if men would seriously think of, they would not be so apt to flatter themselves with a long life; for no man accounts twenty or thirty years a long life, and that is the most they have to live now, though they should attain to the longest period of human life, much less could they flatter themselves with a long life, when they could not probably reckon above fifteen or ten years to come. And would men observe how their life shortens every day, this, if any thing, would make them grow chary of their time, and begin to

think of living, that is, of minding the true ends and purposes of life, of doing the work for which they came into the world, and which they must do before they die, or they are miserable for ever.

3. When men draw near the end of their reckoning; nay, it may be, are past the common reckoning of mankind, it more especially concerns them to apply themselves to a more serious and solemn preparation for death for how vigorous soever their age is, death cannot be far off; it will be unpardonable in them, to be deceived with the hopes of living much longer, who have already attained to the common period of human life, and are in the borders and confines, nay in the very quarters of death, and have already, if I may so speak, borrowed some years from the other world.

Now when I speak of such men's preparing for death, I do not mean, that they should then begin to think of dying; that is a great deal too late to begin such a work; though if they have not done it before, it is without doubt high time to begin it then, in the last minute of their lives, and to do what they can in that little time that remains, to obtain their pardon of God for spending a long life in sin and vanity, and in a forgetfulness of their Maker and Redeemer.

But that which I now intend, concerns those who have thought of dying long before, and governed their lives under the conduct and influence of such